#Ramey18

Our marriage is old enough to buy its own lottery tickets and sign up for the Selective Service.

OMG. How did we get here so fast? LOL!

As all educators know, any holiday or celebration that arrives in May has to get in line behind all the end of school activities and the craziness that is the May schedule. So we’re used to “flexible” anniversary celebration dates. (Ditto my birthday.)

And once you’ve been married for a few, you can relax a little and calm down about making the celebration A Big Deal. I just want to enjoy some time with my man, because I love him and he’s still awesome. In fact, I’d say he’s awesome-er than when we first met.

So with that in mind, we’ve been looking for 18 things to do that represent Rameylife … Keep tuning in to see the whole set. 🙂

#1 Good food in Upstate SC, in this case, the Tandem Creperie in Traveler’s Rest. We’ve been exploring culinary goodness together for a long time now….

#6 Had lunch last week at one of our favorite Greenville spots, Takosushi. I’ve always loved their bottle cap fish wall art. I’m a sucker for metalworking. (OK, that’s a stretch for something made from beer bottles and cans, but it’s still a cool piece!)

#7 A B&N date! This is the original “cheap date night” in our relationship. Long before we were married, we had the habit of heading to the B&N on Haywood Rd to curl up with a book and coffee. I think Coart read all of Harry Potter #3 at that B&N. lol

#8. Dinner with friends. Hard to choose just one photo for this because I could list so, so many moment in our lives with friends we care about. This shot evokes memories of hundreds of evenings spent on patios, porches, lawns, dinner tables, and cities across the world with friends we love. #friends ❤

10. Mars. If you have known us for a long time, you know why that’s funny. And this week, Mars is closer to earth than it will be for another 80 years. NASA has some cool pics. Very pretty. Still not planning to move there. 😉

11. Small town exploration. It’s the best. Especially in Abbeville, SC, which has some of the best eats in the whole state. Really. I’m not kidding. Hit up The Village Grill. Some of the best food you’ll find anywhere.

12. UGA. This is probably weird for an anniversary montage, but I think the school that’s taken 5 years of my husband’s soul (not to mention a whole bunch of dollars) deserves a place on this list. His PhD has certainly been a continual part-time job…

13. Live music. I drag him along to see shows. As long as it’s not too hot, loud, crowded, or smokey, he’s willing to hang in there with me. I appreciate that. 🙂 We saw Snarky Puppy play in Athens last week at the wonderful Georgia Theatre. Totally worth it. As was the meal beforehand, at The Last Resort Grill.

14. Games. We’ve enjoyed getting to know people through board games. Early in our marriage, it was Settlers of Cataan – I think we nearly broke up 4 marriages by teaching our friends to play that game. 🙂 Now it’s mooning off Jesse’s impressive collection of some of the best board games coming out these days. Hard to believe Settlers was practically the first Euro-style game to hit big in America. And that we played it – as the hipsters would say – way before anyone else had heard about it. (In Germany!)

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You know you’ve entered a temple when disagreement is treated as sacrilege. The animosity directed toward NFL players kneeling at the anthem, protesting police brutality and structural racism, is the sort of acrimony we reserve for infidels….

This response to the kneeling controversy tells us something about the state of American civil religion and the way it accommodates — and then deforms — traditional religious communities.

The tropes of “God and country” or “faith and the flag” are almost always instances where country and flag domesticate faith in God. Or, to put this in terms that religious folk should understand: These liturgies of civil religion are covert modes of idolatry. The rank and priority are reversed; our political identities trump all others.

This is how stadiums became temples of nationalism. When the Constitution functions like Scripture, and the pledge serves as our creed, and the flag is revered like the cross, and the national anthem becomes our hymn, and the hand over heart is a sacred expression like the sign of the cross, then a swelling patriotism becomes our religion and dissenters are heretics.